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Some humor sites have tried other things such as paid subscriptions, but I wouldn't recommend that at the moment.

"Who would buy it?"

You'll need a large number of subscribers to sell your newsletter ad space, but unfortunately, you may not make any money until you have a large number of subscribers. It is also important to decide upon a subscription model: opt-in, confirmed opt-in or paid.

Would I would recommend though is that you talk to other humor webmasters. They will generally want to help you get started by sharing links and content with you (not to mention hints and advice).

Take a look at Joe Catroons Site as I believe it's probably one of the most successful humor sites around. It's killing me now because I know I recently read an article about just how successful they were and how they make their money...but for the life of me I can't remember where I read it!

Some humor sites have tried other things such as paid subscriptions, but I wouldn't recommend that at the moment.

"Who would buy it?"

You'll need a large number of subscribers to sell your newsletter ad space, but unfortunately, you may not make any money until you have a large number of subscribers. It is also important to decide upon a subscription model: opt-in, confirmed opt-in or paid.

Would I would recommend though is that you talk to other humor webmasters. They will generally want to help you get started by sharing links and content with you (not to mention hints and advice).

I have been wondering the same thing. But what I really wonder is what kind of membership levels you need to make any serious money off a humor site (to me, serious is $2k a month or more)

I hear of all these guys that say it only takes 30 minutes a day to update, they have 20,000 subscribers, and they make $200 a month. So 10-15 hours a month for updating, another 5-10 for promotion and admin, another 10 for billing and finding new advertisers and affiliate programs, and I am up to 30-35 hours a month for $200, or about $6 an hour. And they still have to pay hosting costs. yippee !! NOT.

So what is the upside of this type of business?

I also notice that JoeCartoon only does a single popup. Maybe that is the real secret

Originally posted by galt I hear of all these guys that say it only takes 30 minutes a day to update, they have 20,000 subscribers, and they make $200 a month. So 10-15 hours a month for updating, another 5-10 for promotion and admin, another 10 for billing and finding new advertisers and affiliate programs, and I am up to 30-35 hours a month for $200, or about $6 an hour. And they still have to pay hosting costs. yippee !! NOT.

My best month was last July when I made a couple thousand off one affiliate program. I had 80,000 subscribers, but that was when the economy was good. Now you'll probably make a couple thousand when you have about 200,000 opt-out (and uncleaned) subscribers.

It only took me about 30 minutes a day - total. That included promotion, checking e-mails, making a new newsletter, and updating the site. I did spend some other time reading message boards, but to me, that doesn't count.

However, I did sell my humor website (Joke University) to another individual a couple months ago so I could start on other projects.

Actually JoeCartoon is going through some hard times thats why they made that subscription model giving you access to download there cartoons. On one of their last newsletters they quoted

"also while i have you reading, i wanted to clear up why we went with a
subscription model for the downloads....ad revenue just is no longer
covering our insane bandwidth bills and in order to keep the rest of the
site up and free as well as be able to keep the doors open and joe animating
we needed to find a new way to pay our bills, unfortunately no sponsors
stepped up to bail us out."

Take a look at Joe Catroons Site as I believe it's probably one of the most successful humor sites around. It's killing me now because I know I recently read an article about just how successful they were and how they make their money...but for the life of me I can't remember where I read it!

Originally posted by galt I have been wondering the same thing. But what I really wonder is what kind of membership levels you need to make any serious money off a humor site (to me, serious is $2k a month or more)

I hear of all these guys that say it only takes 30 minutes a day to update, they have 20,000 subscribers, and they make $200 a month. So 10-15 hours a month for updating, another 5-10 for promotion and admin, another 10 for billing and finding new advertisers and affiliate programs, and I am up to 30-35 hours a month for $200, or about $6 an hour. And they still have to pay hosting costs. yippee !! NOT.

So what is the upside of this type of business?

I also notice that JoeCartoon only does a single popup. Maybe that is the real secret

I clear at least $2500 monthly from one humor site. Best month so far was April at $4200.